🗞️ Story file #1043
Hackers disrupt FEC campaign finance system
Oct 27, 6 PM ET to Oct 28, 8 AM ET · 1 outlet not rated for lean
- 11outlets carried it
- 🫏4 · 2 · 4🐘left · center · right
- 14 hourson the front pages
- 11front pages at once, at its peak
- 77 sof TV captions
- 10people retold it online
👣 How this story traveled: from the front pages that broke it, out through TV, radio and the shows, into what people retold and what fact-checkers examined, and on into the saga it is part of. Everything here is matched to the story by our tools, so a link can be wrong; the trackers' pages say how each is made.
- Oct 27, 6 PM ETfirst on TV: Fox News
- Oct 27, 6 PM ETfirst on a front page: Newsweek
- Oct 28, 4 AM ETpeak: on 11 front pages
- Oct 28, 5 AM ETretold online by 10 people
📰 Spread
the front pages that ran it, hour by hour
📡 wire copy: 1 outlet ran the Reuters headline nearly word for word (Yahoo News)
📌 linked by aggregators: Drudge Report Political Wire
💬 quoted: “Breach US Federal Election Commission”
✏️ 3 outlets ran more than one headline on it (reworded, or a follow-up)
- Newsmax (2 wordings): “Hacking Attempt Disrupts Federal Election Commission” → “Hacking Attempt Disrupts FEC Filing System”
- Red State (2 wordings): “Report: Hackers Targeting US Federal Election Commission” → “Cyberattack Report: Hackers Targeting US Federal Election Commission Ward Clark”
- Townhall (3 wordings): “Federal Election Commission Targeted in Cyberattack One Week Before Midterms” → “Cyberattack Federal Election Commission Targeted in Cyberattack One Week Before Midterms Joe Chalfant”
Every outlet's first headline (11), left to right by AllSides rating
HuffPost
Hacking Attempts Against U.S. Federal Election Commission System Triggered Outage, Email Shows Oct 27, 5 PM ET
Mediaite
NEW: Reuters Reports Hacker is Actively Trying to ‘Breach US Federal Election Commission’ Oct 27, 4 PM ET
NBC News
Hackers target FEC system, disrupting campaign finance disclosures Oct 27, 8 PM ET
Yahoo News
Exclusive-Hackers target US FEC system, disrupting campaign finance disclosures days before midterms Oct 28, 4 AM ET
Newsweek
Federal Election Commission Offline After Hacking Attempt: Report Oct 27, 6 PM ET
Reuters
EXCLUSIVE: Hackers target US FEC system, disrupting campaign finance disclosures days before midterms Oct 27, 6 PM ET
Newsmax
Hacking Attempt Disrupts Federal Election Commission Oct 27, 5 PM ET
Red State
Report: Hackers Targeting US Federal Election Commission Oct 27, 5 PM ET
The Daily Caller
Hackers Knocked Federal Election Commission Offline, Emails Show Oct 27, 8 PM ET
Townhall
Federal Election Commission Targeted in Cyberattack One Week Before Midterms Oct 27, 8 PM ET
The Washington Sun
Federal Election Commission Outage Hits One Week Out From Election Day Oct 27, 7 PM ET
📡 Broadcast
TV, radio, and the shows that talked about it
📺 On TV
- SYSTEM OUTAGE. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION WORKS TO RESOLVE ISSUE Fox News, 29 s
- CYBERSECURITY CONCERNS. HACKERS REPORTEDLY TARGET FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION Fox News, 19 s
- ATTEMPTED BREACH. HACKERS REPORTEDLY TARGET FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION Fox News, 19 s
- HACKING ATTEMPT Fox News, 10 s
🧶 Retelling
what people online made of it
🧶 Retold online
- Hackers targeted the FEC system to disrupt campaign finance disclosures right before the midterm elections. Oct 28: told by 10 people
On Folklore: the latest in full, with their motifs and who is telling them.
🗣️ names in it: Federal Election Commission Reuters Ward Clark Hackers Cyberattack Report
🔎 Checking
what the fact-checkers looked into
🧐 No fact-checker has taken it on yet.
🧵 Persistence
the running story it belongs to
🌱 A story of its own so far: no saga yet.